Freedom Ring
by TheDreamChild
Summary: How a mustang is affected by the Burns Amendment. Full summary inside. Caution: horse slaughter scene later on. Please R&R. Chapter 5 is up! Complete.
1. Liberty Dies

Title: Freedom Ring

Author: TheDreamChild

Rating: PG-13 (for a horse slaughter scene later on and perhaps some light swearing)

Summary: A first person account of the life of a mustang filly, how her family is split up, and how she is affected by the Burns Amendment.

A/N: I got inspiration. Hope you peeps enjoy.

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In the cold winter of 2004, a man named Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican Senator, slipped a short paragraph into a spending bill. The bill was passed, and before long it was quite plain that something was wrong. Then someone read the paragraph in the law. It said that all Mustangs over ten years old, or who had been unsuccessfully put up for adoption three times, could be sold to the highest bidder. Without restriction of any kind. Before long, forty-one Mustangs had been slaughtered for their meat so that the wealthy of France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Japan could enjoy a "delicacy" – horsemeat. I was born into this world. And I had the great misfortune to be born a Mustang.

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I was born on the Fourth of July, two years before the Burns Amendment was made law. My mother, lead mare of a large herd, told me I was destined to be great. She said there was something special about me, that my name would someday be known by everyone. I never took her seriously. All I knew was that I was the daughter of the most powerful stallion around. He was a tall red chestnut named Commander. He was the great grandson of Hidalgo, the legendary Mustang who helped save our breed so many years ago. Maybe that's why mommy told me I would be great. I never really cared, because my world was happy.

When I was two my mommy started telling me stories about the White Bird. The stories were about how any Mustang who was hunted by the White Bird never came back, except for a select few who galloped back, exhausted, terrified, and without their family. These poor souls often went mad, running away from the slightest noise, jumping at any movement, never calming down. My mommy would nuzzle my bright chestnut and white neck, and tell me that I shouldn't worry because the White Bird had never ever come anywhere near _our_ territory. It only calmed me a little.

"Wake up baby, wake up, we gotta run now, baby." It was my mommy. I struggled to my feet and shook my long black and white mane. I was a bright chestnut paint, with a star, stripe, and snip on my face.

"Where's my sire?" I asked, looking around for the striking chestnut stallion. He wasn't there.

"No time now, baby, we gotta run. Your sire saw the White Bird, it's coming closer." She said, her voice panicked and strained. I half reared, and then quickly cantered out of the small canyon we had sheltered in that night. I heard a roar behind me and almost stopped to look back, but my mommy nipped my side and told me to keep running. We bolted through the meadows that during the day seemed so peaceful, but at night seemed to be crawling with monsters and ghosts. The four other mares in our herd, plus my older full brother Strike, all ran as if their lives depended on it. I barely stopped to think where we were running. I had to get away from the roar, the scary noise behind me, and the flashing lights that I caught glimpses of out of the corner of my eye.

* * *

After what seemed like days, we finally stopped. A metal gate closed behind us, and we saw for the first time the fence closing us in. My sire, who arrived last, reared angrily, challenging anyone to come near him. I saw something move, something tall that stood on two legs. I stared at it for a while before I realized it must be one of those humans that the older mares used to whisper about. I stood close to my mommy's side, hoping that we would be all right. The White Bird flew over us and I whinnied in fright. It shone in the early morning sun. _It's metal?_ I thought to myself with slight bewilderment. My mommy was shaking all over, and some men with whips hit my sire because he tried to break out of the corral. Then the men drove us into a narrow alleyway and loaded us into trailers. My mommy and I were standing next to each other the whole time, terrified of being separated. The men seemed to not want to hurt us, but they had no idea how terrible it was to lock us up; we who had been free all our lives.

We were sent to holding pens somewhere in the desert. It was hot, and there was water for us to drink but there were so many of us that we almost trampled each other to get food and something to drink. Some more men came and checked my mommy and sire's teeth, and then my herd mates' teeth. They didn't check me or Strike for some reason.

"Well, Bill, those five there are over ten, that's for sure," one of the men said. The other nodded.

"Yep, almost a pity. Such nice looking horses, but the stallion's too wild to do anything with." He replied, rubbing his chin with one hand and peering at my sire from across the paddock. He sighed deeply.

"You know, my daughter was a real good hand with training the horses," he continued absently. The other man jumped slightly.

"Well I'll be damned, Bill! You haven't talked about Kate since the accident," he said, looking at Bill warily. Bill grunted a response. He kicked at a rock with his foot, staring at my sire.

"I dunno why I mentioned her. Just that stallion, he looks just like Todd, Kate's horse." He sighed and stepped away from the fence.

"C'mon, let's go get something to eat." With that he and the other man walked away. I began to wonder about humans, and if they were really as cruel as they seemed.

* * *

Three weeks later my mom and sire and my herd mates were herded into a smaller pen with other older horses. I followed my mother, keeping close to her side. The men didn't see me, but when my brother tried to come they drove him off. My sire was exhausted from fighting the humans and trying to keep the other stallions away from my mommy and me. A man with a microphone stood in front of a small crowd of seedy looking people and a few ranchers.

"All right, we have a ten year old chestnut stallion, good health," the man said, reading off of a piece of paper attached to a clipboard. With a slightly malicious smile he added, "There's 'bout twelve hundred pounds on 'him, by the way." Some of the men in the crowd chuckled darkly. My sire tossed his head and snorted as if to say "Don't laugh about me; it'll be the worse for you if you do." The man set down the clipboard on a pedestal.

"All right, let's start the bidding at three hundred," he snapped into the microphone. One of the seed looking dealers raised a hand to show he had bid. The bidding went on for a few minutes before the bidding stopped at four hundred. My sire was roped and led off to a double-decker trailer. He reared in protest, but one of his handlers hit him with a whip and he bolted forward into the trailer. My herd was sold off one by one, all to the man who bought my sire. One of the men spotted me as I followed my mother.

"What about this little one?" he said, jerking his thumb at me. The man glanced at the auctioneer, and then sneered.

"If she wants to come so damn bad, let her come." He walked away and got into a pickup truck, slamming the door shut behind him. My mother was driven into the trailer, and I was driven in with her. Thus began my long journey.

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A/N: All right All right I know I probably got some of my facts wrong, but just trust me for a bit. I've never been to a Mustang auction, so I have to guess at what it's like. 


	2. Journey's End

A/N: Ok, chapter two for you peeps.

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I cried. It was dark and cold. There were loud noises all around me. Mommy told me not to worry, that it would be all right. But I could hear the terror in her voice. We were still in the trailer. It had been more than twelve hours, and I would have given anything to be back home. We didn't even know where we were or what time of day it was, except that it was freezing. We didn't have any room to move at all. We only stopped once, to pick up more horses. Three draft mares and a flea-bitten grey gelding. When the truck started up again one of the draft mares lost her balance and fell on top of me. My mommy kicked and bit her, trying to get her to move. But we were so crowded that the mare could barely step back. I managed to move forward enough to avoid any more collisions.

Finally, we stopped. It was still cold, but then I suppose there must have been a frost the night before. The men opened the trailer door. It was the first real light I had seen for more than a day. The other horses eagerly got out of the trailer; in fact I was almost trampled by the draft mare that had almost crushed me. My mommy wouldn't let me leave the trailer until all our herd mates were out. On reflection, I think keeping me in the back may have saved my life. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to the bright light I panicked. We were in a pen, crowded together worse than we had been at the auction. I could smell blood in the air and every so often a horse screamed. My mommy whinnied for my sire, but the men pushed him away from us.

"Shut up, horse," a tall man snapped. My sire reared and kicked out at him. The man swore loudly and slapped my sire with a whip. Startled, the mighty stallion backed off. The grey gelding snorted in a dignified manner.

"I pity you, I truly do," he said in a thick British accent. My mother turned her head to stare at him.

"Why?" she asked in a dry voice. The gelding snorted again.

"Obviously you aren't from around here. If you were," he added, "you would be fighting harder or just standing around, not something in between." He let out a depressed sigh and yawned.

"Umm, where are we exactly?" I ventured in a tentative tone. The gelding looked at me sharply.

"I'm not sure you're old enough to hear the answer to that question," he said while giving my mommy an enquiring look. She nodded reluctantly.

"Well, here they…kill horses and ponies for our meat. Foolish humans," he said quietly. I stared at him, utterly stunned. My mommy whinnied in a frightened manner and looked beseechingly at the men. They ignored her.

"How'd you get here?" I asked. The gelding was silent for a few moments.

"Well, it's a long story. I suppose it began when I was born. Oh, such a fine place I was born in! Near London, I believe. I'm half cob, half appaloosa. Both of my parents were stars of the hunter-jumper world," he said, his eyes glazing over as he stared wistfully into the distance, "But not all good things last. The stable where I was trained burned down, taking my sire with it. Terrible tragedy. Broke my owner's heart. He had to sell all of us. I was only two at the time. Anyway, a splendid fellow bought me, truly splendid fellow. He trained me to jump, and I even did some dressage for a few years. Poor chap died in a car crash not four years after he bought me. I was shipped over to this blasted country, pardon me," he added as my mother began to say something in indignant anger at our country being called "blasted", "I changed hands several times. I didn't do too badly at those hunter shows. Won myself at least a dozen blue ribbons. But, as is the way of the world, I got old. I'm twenty-six, if you can believe that. Twenty-six! People stopped riding me, and they used me as a stud for a year or so. None of my foals did well, poor kids. They gelded me and put me out to pasture. Eventually I was sold here." He stopped talking and gave me a sad look with those large brown eyes of his.

"You're much too young to be here already. I, well, I lived a good long life. Though I didn't want it to end like this. I really wouldn't have minded if I had just lived out my life in peace, and died in my sleep. But for many of us, humans won't let us have peace, not in this life. Not in this life."

A week later we were still in that God forsaken place. We didn't have food or water. The horses in front of us gradually were led into a pen. I never watched any of them die, it hurt me too much. But I did hear them. The screams will live with me until I die. The old gelding was led off one day. He gave us both a curt nod as he was led into the "kill box". He never made a sound.

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A/N: Ok, depressing, I know. Next chapter I advise the faint of heart and anyone under ten to skip. It's gonna get pretty darn ugly. Not for those who are too young to handle it. 


	3. Darkness Falls

A/N: This chapter is the whole reason I rated this story PG-13. It is graphic, as in a horse slaughter scene. I do not advise anyone under ten, or who is especially sensitive to this kind of thing, to read this. You can skip to the next chapter without missing anything important, because I will run over what you missed in the next a/n (minus anything graphic). IF SENATOR CONRAD BURNS IS READING THIS STORY I DEMAND THAT YOU READ THIS CHAPTER! (Not likely, but one can always hope.)

That day dawned cold and wet. It was raining. It always rains when something bad happens to me. I was dozing as well as I could with all the horses making so much noise all around me. Quite suddenly, I heard my sire whinny. I opened my eyes in terror. Two men had thrown ropes around my sire's chestnut neck and were trying to drag him into the "kill box". The proud horse was not giving in. He was fighting up a storm. He reared, lunged at one of the men, kicked, bucked, and pulled every trick in the book. But it didn't help him. They dragged him into the pen and shocked him with an electric prod from behind, but no one could get near enough to kill him. Then he reared. I saw it all as if it happened in slow motion. The humans jerked the rope that was around his head. My sire's eyes were filled with more surprise than anything else as he fell, his long mane swirling around his neck and his forelegs clawing at the sky. As soon as he hit the ground I knew it was over. One of the men leapt forward with a "stun gun" as they call it. It's really more like a nail gun with nails roughly four or five inches long. The man shot three bolts into my sire's head. He screamed. I will never forget the way he screamed. The humans stood there, watching him, completely unmoved by his scream for release, not caring that he was in unbearable pain. They dragged his body to a machine that looked like a crane. They ignored the way he was still feebly struggling, ignored the fact that he was still very much alive and was not stunned as they pretend that all the horses are before they die. They lifted him up by a rope around his hind legs and slit his throat. It made me sick Blood was splattering all over the ground; I suddenly noticed the bodies of dozens of horses. I don't know why I never saw them before; perhaps it was because I didn't want to see. I didn't want to know.

By this time all my herd mates were dead, even the pregnant one. She had been almost ready to have her foal, and they murdered her. It didn't register in my mind. But then, all humans are ruthless killers, according to mustangs.

Three days after my sire died, they came after me. I was standing near my mommy, and we hadn't noticed that the other horses had slowly been pushing us closer to the kill box. I vaguely remember a man snapping at someone else, and a sharp shock from the electric prod. I bolted to the side, away from the prod and the kill box. My mommy defended me. It was all a whirl of movement. The men whipped me and my mother and the horses around us, my mommy kept coming between me and the men, and I kept trying to get away. I suddenly saw a gap in the mass of horses, a way out of that battle and a flicker of hope for me. Behind me my mother screamed. I checked in mid canter. The men had a rope around my mommy's neck, and were dragging her towards the kill box. I started to go back…

"No! Run! Get away from here!" she yelled at me as I came forward. The ropes were slowly choking her to death. No one cared. The horses just wanted to stay alive, even in the living hell we were in, and the men just wanted us dead. They watched without pity as my mother kicked me away. They whipped a horse next to me, and it moved between me and my mother. The other horses were spooked by a trailer that had suddenly pulled into the "driveway" where the double decker trailers parked. They moved like a giant wave, slowly but surely pushing me away from my mother. I could still hear her screaming for me to get away. Then her scream was cut off, leaving behind a terrible silence.

The trailer that had spooked the other horses was parked not far from the back fence, where I had taken refuge from the darkness of that day. I saw someone come out of the cab of the truck that was pulling the trailer. It was a tall, elderly man. He looked at us and shook his head sadly. My ears twitched as he walked closer, my head lifting a couple inches. I was terrified that this man was here to kill me. He slipped his hands through the bars of the fence and patted my neck. I couldn't move because I was boxed in. The mare next to me thrust her head at him, begging for attention. The man patted her too. He walked off and talked to one of the men for a moment, and then he came back and helped two of the men get a halter and lead rope on me and the other mare. They led us out of the paddock and into a two horse trailer. I was too upset and tired to fight…

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A/N – The good news is, the story gets happier from here. The bad news is, 50,000 horses are slaughtered every year in the exact same way the kill the ones in the story. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I should not be the only one writing on this subject…(hint hint) 


	4. Light

A/N: Ok, brief summary of last chapter for those too young to read: The filly's father and mother were slaughtered. She was about to be killed, but an old guy came and took her and another mare away in his comfortable horse trailer. There, you missed nothing but gory details.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kelly Clarkson's song "Miss Independent".

* * *

I was scared. It wasn't dark or smelly or terrifying inside the trailer, but I was scared of what would happen to me. The mare next to me, a dark bay, was quiet. She seemed happy and somewhat relaxed, but I was still thrashing around, trying to get the halter off. I whinnied frantically.

"Somebody help me!" I cried. The mare gave me a look.

"Shut up, kid, we're safe now."

"No we're not! We're with a human, we're gonna die if we don't get away!"

"No, we're not, kid, calm down. The place we were at is as bad as it gets, we can only go up from here," she replied with relief in her tone. I thought she must have been crazy.

After an hour or so, we stopped. The mare was calm, but I strained against my rope even harder. The man came and opened the back of the trailer.

"Mark, come and help me with these horses!" he shouted over his shoulder. A middle-aged man with blonde hair and glasses hurried over.

"Ah, you've been down to De Kalb again, eh? Who'd you bring back this time?" he asked as he peered into the trailer.

"A pair of mares. The older one caught my eye; I think she might be good in the riding program. The other one's a Mustang. Young, skinny, wild, but she has potential," the older man said while he climbed into the trailer and started to untie the mare's lead rope. In a moment, he was backing her out of the trailer while talking to her in low, soft, gentle tones. Once she was out, he handed her lead rope to Mark and cautiously climbed back into the trailer. I was about to kick him when he started talking to me in that quiet voice.

"Easy there, girl, easy, you're gonna be fine. It's ok, I'm just gonna untie you, ok?" he whispered as he edged his way over to my head. He placed a wrinkled hand on my neck and slowly petted me, moving his hand down my neck and almost to my shoulder before moving it back and petting me again. Despite myself, I calmed. My head dropped and I relaxed.

"That's a good girl. Easy, now." He untied the lead rope and quietly back me out of the trailer. The only scary part was when I was about to put my foot down and I felt nothing but air. I froze.

"It's fine, your hoof is a couple inches above the ground," the bay mare said in an almost bored tone. I nervously set my hoof down and was relieved to find solid dirt underneath it. There wasn't much trouble after that.

The man stood next to me in the driveway, patting my neck as Mark just shook his head in awe.

"You have a real way with horses, sir," he said while barely holding back a grin. The old man smiled softly and patted my neck once more before he started to lead me to the barn. I was scared, but I trusted him enough to know he probably wasn't going to hurt me. Suddenly feeling cocky, I pranced and playfully pulled on the rope, acting like I could get away at any second. The man smiled at me and sighed.

"You're a feisty little one, aren't ya?" he said with a long, slow grin. A door banged against its frame somewhere to my left, and I spooked. The man gave me plenty of rope so I could turn my head to look for the source of the noise. A skinny girl with shaggy shoulder length brownish-black hair and a blank expression was walking about twenty feet ahead of us. She wore black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a silvery choker around her neck.

"Raen! Come here!" the old man said as loudly as is wise around horses. The girl stopped and gave the man a "what now?" look. Reluctantly, she trudged over with her hands in her pockets, head down, not looking at us.

"What?" she growled. The man gave her a stern look.

"You skipped chores again, Raen, that's the second time this week. If it happens again it's no riding for a week," he said with a cold edge to his tone. She didn't answer, but I could tell it upset her. After a few moments of silence she spoke.

"It won't happen again, grandfather, I promise," she said in the same growling voice. She shuffled her feet in the dirt, sending up a small cloud of dust.

"So what do you think of the new horse?" her grandfather asked. Raen looked up for the first time. She had round silver eyes with flecks of a darker grey in them; they seemed to see everything and nothing at the same time. Her eyes held no emotion whatsoever, yet there was some dark secret locked deep inside her that flashed briefly as she caught my eye, then vanished just as quickly. We stared at each other for a long time before she broke the quiet.

"She's beautiful. Mustang, I assume?" she asked in a low (but not growling) tone. Her grandfather nodded and offered my lead rope to her.

"Want to bring her into the barn?" A shadowy smile appeared on her pale face. Taking my lead rope in her right hand, she reached over and stroked my neck. For a moment we stood like that, she running her hand over my neck and me standing there, watching her. Then she started walking towards the stable and I followed. I retained the air of one who could easily break free and run off into the darkness, but I wasn't about to leave. Something about these people compelled me to stay.

* * *

The next day, early, Raen came into the barn and started feeding the horses. She was dressed in dark clothing as usual; today's wardrobe consisted of a black tank top, black jeans, and the silver choker from the day before. The only difference was that her hair was in a loose ponytail. When she was finished feeding the horses, she started giving us water. She didn't stop to pet any of them except for me. She gave me water last, dragging the green hose over to my stall door and open the top half of it. All the stall doors were double doors, with an upper half that swung open when unlatched. Raen stuck the end of the hose into my bucket and listened to the slow splash of fresh water hitting the old. My bucket was almost empty, so she maneuvered the hose end so that it would stay in the bucket of she let go. Once it was in place, she opened the bottom half of the door and stepped in. 

"Hey there, girl. Guess what my grandfather said?" she asked. I snorted questioningly.

"He said I get to name you. Isn't that cool?" she continued with one of her slow, mysterious smiles. I bobbed my head in answer. Raen seemed to be far more open with horses than she was with people. She stood there for a minute, absently rubbing my forehead (something I normally didn't allow humans to do), and thinking. She looked around as though trying to get inspiration. She sighed at last and starting humming a rock and roll song to herself. After a moment she started singing it to herself very softly. The lyrics were hard to catch, but after a while Raen stopped singing and snapped her fingers.

"I know what to call you! _Miss Independent!_ Like the song. We can just call you 'Indi' for short!" she said excitedly. I bobbed my head again in agreement. It sounded good to me too. By now my bucket was full and Raen turned the hose off. She glanced at her watch and groaned.

"I've gotta go for school, Indi," she said in her growling tone. She pulled her ponytail out and shook her head to make her hair messier. She swiftly closed my stall door and put the hose away. On her way out of the barn, she stooped down next to the door and grabbed a shabby black backpack. With a wave, she was gone.

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A/N: Ok, not too great for chapter four, but I've had Writer's Block and only just got inspiration. Read and Review! I've had little feedback from this... 


	5. First Things First

After a few weeks I started getting more used to humans. Raen visited me every day either before school or after it. She was an odd sort of person, really. It wasn't just the way she dressed and her growling tones. It was also how sad she always seemed. Raen was always very quiet when she came home from school. I felt sorry for her. One if the older geldings told me Raen's mother had died in a riding accident last year and her father had started drinking after that. One day he drank too much at a bar and had crashed into a tree on his way home. Raen didn't have any other family except for her grandfather, so she came to live at the ranch. Her love of horses never wavered, even after her mother died. Now it was one of her only joys in life.

Raen's grandfather eventually started training me. Raen volunteered to be the first one on my back.

"Raen, are you sure you're ready for this? You've never helped start a Mustang before," her grandfather said tensely as Raen put on a riding helmet over her black hair. She had finally dyed it black, since she was sick of having brown highlights. The teen smiled reassuringly.

"I'll be just fine. Indi trusts me," she replied. It was a hot day in late September. I'm not sure where exactly the ranch is, but one of the mares told me we live in southern Illinois. I stood nervously in the middle of a round pen, waiting for something dreadful. The first thing I remember was a soft voice that I had never heard before. It took me a few minutes to realize it was Raen.

"That's it, girl, nice and easy," she said quietly. Then I felt a light weight as she placed one foot in the stirrup. I didn't move. Gingerly, Raen leaned on my back. When I still didn't move, she swung her right leg over my back and sat on top of me. I felt her right foot searching for the stirrup, the light contact she had with my mouth through the reins, and her weight in the comfy English saddle. She didn't actually weigh all that much, she felt something like a hundred pounds or a little over that. I snorted softly and my ears flicked back and forth from Raen to her grandfather to noises in front of me. Raen patted my neck.

"Good girl," she said calmly. She then turned her head and stared at her grandfather.

"See, no problem." I felt a light nudge from her heels and I obediently walked forward. Raen was a good rider, I'll admit. She was centered in such a way that was comfortable for both of us, and her cues were soft and subtle. It was almost like I could _feel_ what she wanted me to do. She nudged my side again, a little harder, and I started to trot. Suddenly, I felt her weight lift off my back momentarily, then she was back in the saddle. This went on for a while, until I understood that she was rising and falling with my stride as I trotted around in a wide circle. After a while there was the lightest pull on the reins and I slowed to a halt.

"Wow, she's got a great posting trot," Raen said. Her grandfather nodded. Then he smiled broadly.

"Honey, I've got a surprise for you," he said. Raen turned her head and looked at him.

"Yeah?" she asked. It sounded like she was trying not to get her hopes up too high, but was failing.

"Darling, you were riding before you could walk, I just think it's fair that you get your own horse. Raen, would you like to have Indi be your very own horse?" Stunned silence.

"Of course!" was the enthusiastic response after she got over the initial shock. It seemed to me like Raen had got her wish.

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A/N: Sorry it's so short, inspiration ran out. just thought I'd post something


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